


The Body Craves Sugar

by KittenKin



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awkward Flirting, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gay Baby Sherlock Holmes, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22305628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKin/pseuds/KittenKin
Summary: John tries to speak Science to Sherlock, and Sherlock falls all over himself trying to reply in Emotion.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 13
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

“The body craves sugar when it’s low on protein.”

Sherlock looks up, offense already creasing his brow at being interrupted, though in all honesty he hadn’t been doing anything more important than tidying away some odds and ends in his mind palace.

“So it’s…it’s meat or beans you really want, but if you don’t know it, then you find yourself just grabbing a handful of sweets.”

“John, if this is an attack upon my eating habits,” Sherlock sighs, but his personal physician shakes his head.

“Thirst gets confused for hunger, too. And there’s water in most foods anyway, so it works a bit, but it would’ve been better to actually drink a glass of water. Would’ve been what the body really needed.”

For a lecture on healthy-minded living, John’s body language screams discomfort. Sherlock looks harder, pays more attention, snaps the connections to everything else unrelated and unnecessary that he’d been maintaining peripheral awareness of.

Steady strings of words. Rehearsed. But needing to be forced out. And on the flip side, unable to be kept inside any longer.

Hands never still; twisting and plucking at each other, scraping through hair, rubbing down denim-clad thighs. Keeping grounded. Distracting from unpleasant emotion.

Words about wellness, but not speaking about health. Not speaking as a doctor at all.

Determined to see something through and with a plan in place, but not with the calm of a good leader in battle. Not the captain, not sitting hunched over in his chair like that.

So it was John, just John, needing to communicate something important - not dangerous or mysterious or exciting but important - not to the detective or genius but to his flatmate and friend.

Sherlock feels a stab of fear. He’s going to make a bloody hash of this, isn’t he.

“And…and when I’m not around, you talk to the skull or the air or a bloody balloon,” John continues, waving a hand at the mantle. “And it’s something, it lets you order your thoughts, but it’s not what you…well, what you want, is it?”

A look - expectant? beseeching? - indicates that some sort of response is requested. Sherlock shakes his head.

“You’ve asked, before. Well, it’s been a throwaway thing really, you’ve not been expecting a real answer, but you’ve asked. Why I keep dating ‘all these boring women’.” John’s hands still after the air quotes, and he takes a deep breath. On the tail end of the exhale, he looks up, and his expression has calmed as well.

Like a soldier who’s come to terms with not surviving the next battle, Sherlock thinks, and his palms prickle as they unconsciously close into fists.

“I wanted to explain,” John says. “Maybe you don’t even care, but it’s for me too. I want more from you, but I can’t have it, so I date women I won’t fall in love with instead. It’s not what I want, but it helps manage the cravings, do you see?”


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock sees, quite clearly, and goes into a quiet panic, thinking over options at top speed. Whatever comes out of his mouth next has to be the right thing, because moments like this - pivotal, life-altering, literally once-in-a-lifetime moments - do not come with second chances.

Unfortunately, when it comes to romance, Sherlock’s knowledge base only consists of relationships that culminated in an interesting crime. Not exactly the pattern he wants to establish.

Perhaps he can simply borrow from John’s similes? If John’s desire for Sherlock is comparable to a need for protein or hydration, and the long string of short-lived flirtations can be likened to candy bars latched onto in the moment simply because they were lying around, then Sherlock…

…can offer John all the beans and water he wants? Because Sherlock is a healthy alternative to all the women of London, who know what to say and when (not) to laugh, and who think a night in with some telly and cuddling is preferable to stalking a serial killer.

Oh God he is absolutely going to make a bloody hash of this.

He’ll just have to plead inexperience and ask John for guidance.

Sherlock refocuses his gaze and startles to find John’s face only seven inches away, and the doctor’s hands on him at shoulder and knee as John kneels by the leather chair.

“There you are!” John breathes out. “Christ, you scared me. I thought I’d broken you.”

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock blurts, and nearly chucks himself out the window at the way John’s face falls. The wonderfully warm hands withdraw.

Hash. And in only three syllables. Well done, Holmes.

Having already put his foot into it, Sherlock breaks into a verbal sprint. Despair and desperation mixed together in just the right amounts make an excellent substitute for confidence, it seems.

“No!” he yelps, and grabs on to John’s sleeves in case the man decides to walk away. “Not about…I only meant to apologize for the brief fugue–”

“Brief? Sherlock, you were catatonic for nearly eight minutes!”

“Not important!” Sherlock interrupts right back, giving his crumpled handfuls of jumper a shake. “What is important is that I’ve ransacked my mind palace and found it void of anything that would be even remotely useful to me in this moment, so I find myself in the rather unusual position - while within unfamiliar territory overall, in point of fact - of needing to rely entirely on your advice and expertise.”

John looks confused, but at least that softly resigned sorrow has faded. Sherlock takes a deep breath and speaks a little slower.

“Tell me what to say, John,” he pleads, but John’s not psychic, so the confused quirk in his eyebrows only increases.

“About what?”

“If I could explain it clearly I wouldn’t have to ask for your help in the first place!” Sherlock responds, throwing up his hands in exasperation. He quickly realizes his tactical error, however, and latches back on, scooching down onto the floor for good measure.

“Hey, what?”

“Protein and hydration,” Sherlock says firmly. The original similes are solid, even if the metaphor falls apart when applied to Sherlock. “What the body actually wants, rather than sweets and snacks.”

John nods, still confused, perhaps a touch wary. Sherlock is pleased, however, at what he chooses to see as progress. Plus, with John dragged fully down to the rug, the doctor will have a more difficult time escaping if the conversation goes even more pear-shaped than it has at present.

“And…and the skull, when what I want is you to talk to,” Sherlock continues, faltering a little as he gets closer to the heart (of the matter). “And you along on cases and puttering around in the kitchen at night, when what I really want is you alongside me always, and…and…”

“And?” John prompts, his voice dropped soft now too, and one hand returns to drop atop one of Sherlock’s, gently encouraging.

“…and puttering around together in bed.”

There’s a horrified silence on Sherlock’s part, which allows him to very clearly hear the snort that greets his ridiculous attempt at a romantic overture.

“That’s why I wanted you to tell me what to say!” Sherlock yells, but whether John hears his mortified protests over his own laughter is up for debate.


	3. Chapter 3

Holmeses do not deal well with embarrassment, especially those of the current generation who deigned not to inure themselves through exposure like the common crowd and instead chose to avoid it entirely through a combination of natural superiority and a carefully cultivated distance. For John’s sake, however, for the sake of gaining John, Sherlock has rolled over and exposed his vulnerable underbelly.

An infant falling on their bottom while attempting their first step is adorable. A teenager fumbling through a first date is endearing. At Sherlock’s age, these pains of growing up are…well.

He can feel his cheeks and ears burning, and if it wasn’t for the residual high of knowing himself to be wanted - romantically? sexually? both? (!!) - by one John Hamish Watson, he thinks he might have fled the scene already, nose stinging with an oncoming storm of tears. But while John is laughing, he is also still holding on to Sherlock’s hand and looking at him with such a beatific, besotted expression as the detective has never seen bestowed on any of the dull women John’s brought home.

No more of those? Exclusivity? _Mine?_ (!!!)

With his free hand, he punches half- or, well, tenth-heartedly at John’s uninjured shoulder, punctuating each hit with a petulant whinge perfectly justified complaint.

“I _told_ you!” *bap*

“I needed!” *bap*

“Guidance!” *bap*

“And now!” *bap*

“I’ve ruined it!” *bap*

“And it’s all!” *bap*

“Your!” *swat swat* (John attempts to ward off the next punch, necessitating a change in tactics.)

“Fault!”

Here, the last blow is thwarted entirely, and Sherlock finds himself neatly disarmed as John gains control of both his laughter and the flailing fingers, and then grabs up both of Sherlock’s hands to press a smacking kiss to both sets of digits. Sherlock has just enough higher brain function left to be impressed at the efficacy of the move.

“You haven’t ruined anything,” John declares, giving Sherlock’s hands a fond squeeze. In defiance of all that is known about the central nervous system, Sherlock’s heart feels squeezed at the same time.

“Even in my most drunken fantasies I never expected some wine-and-roses declaration from you, Sherlock. I just wanted _you_ , and if ‘puttering around together in bed’ is how I find out I can have you, then so be it.”

“Exclusively,” Sherlock blurts, on a sudden impulse to demand concessions while John is in such a cheery mood. A sandy eyebrow goes up.

“Exclusively in bed? If…that’s what you want, though I’m rather fond of a good snog on a couch, myself.”

“No! I mean yes, couch. That’s…yes. That would be…good.” For God’s sake, John’s grinning again, and Sherlock can feel his ears heat up once more. “I mean the…the…all that, on the couch and…in bed. I want it to be exclusively with me.”

“Yeah, of course,” John says immediately, which does wonders for Sherlock’s nerves. If embarrassment is the coin he has to pay for these declarations, then the haughty, high-handed detective is fully ready to don a chicken suit and attempt to communicate the results of his next investigation through interpretive dance while Lestrade and all his goons record the display on their phones.

Meanwhile…

“And you have to be patient. I’m a quick study but there’s always a learning curve with new skills.” Both eyebrows go up at this and there’s now an interesting gleam in John’s eyes, but Sherlock files it for later. The going is good, and he needs to make full use of it.

But John laughs and interrupts him before he can get more than five bullet points through his rapidly expanding mental list.

“Slow down! We don’t need to chart out the entire relationship in one go.” John cuts off the budding protest with another quick kiss, this time to the cheek. (!!!!!)

“We’re dating. Exclusively. And you’re open to snogging on the couch. I think we’re off to a good start.”

Sherlock is aghast at John’s low standards.

“John, I said _puttering around together_ ,” he gasps impolitically. “That is not a good start.”

“Sex can be funny,” John says with an uncaring shrug. “I want to laugh with you in bed, Sherlock. And on the couch. And on the street, at the Met, at Costa…wherever.”

(John has a public sex kink???)

“Are we still talking about laughing, or…?” Sherlock ventures, a mix of nervous and excited, and he’s not entirely certain about the ratio.

“Laughing, snogging, arguing, whatever,” John replies, letting go of Sherlock’s hands (bad) and palming the sides of his neck instead (oh! excellent) to draw them closer together. (Kiss?!) “I want everything with you, Sherlock. Absolutely everything.”

(Kiss!!)


End file.
